Don't Look Down - Jennifer Crusie

by Don't Look Down (StMartins) (v1. 0) (lit)

  "But for you today," the guy said, "sixty."

  Behind him, the WonderWear throbbed. Armstrong could do a lot for that underwear. He wondered what her hair looked like when not in that braid.

  "Okay, okay," the guy said. "I can tell you're a collector and the box is a little worn. Fifty."

  Wilder tried to picture Althea in the WonderWear, which should have been easy since she'd been wearing the same kind of red T-shirt with little straps, but she was just not… strong enough. He looked back at the life-size cutout. He could picture Althea with the bracelets, it was the lasso that didn't work.

  "I know," the guy said, sounding resigned. "You looked on eBay, you know I'm selling them there for about forty, so okay, forty. But that's my final offer."

  Armstrong, on the other hand, he could easily see snapping that rope—

  "And I'll throw in the Wonder Woman Ultimate Sticker Book!" the guy said, desperation in his voice.

  "Fine," Wilder said, trying to come back from Armstrong and the rope. So much for comics as kid stuff.

  The guy nodded, relieved. "Great buy," he said as he went to ring it up. "Wonder Woman's hot."

  The twelve-year-old snickered again.

  "Come back when you're thirteen," Wilder told the kid and paid the guy.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  When Gloom called second meal, Lucy went with everybody else on the shuttle down to the dirt lot under the bridge, but when Connor looked like he was heading her way, she veered off from the crowd around the catering tent to cross the dark lot to her camper. The battered Roadtrak was cramped inside, but it was quiet and it didn't have Daisy looking defeated, or Stephanie being snotty, or Connor bitching about Wilder, or Althea trolling for security, so it was good.

  Lucy stepped up inside and pulled the white waffle curtains closed to shut out the darkness. Then she edged her way around the little blue Formica-topped table behind the swiveling driver's seat and into the short cabinet-lined space that separated the front of the van from the double bed that filled the back. There were apples in the little sink, but Lucy opened the undercounter refrigerator instead and got out IBC Diet Root Beer and cheese sticks. Comfort food.

  She put her iPod in the speaker dock on the counter and dialed up Kirsty MacColl. "In These Shoes." That's what she wanted to hear, a woman in control, calling the shots. Forget "Holding Out For A Hero," there were no heroes—

  The door to the camper opened and Daisy came in, looking worse than ever, and collapsed on one of the plush swivel chairs. "My God, what a night."

  "It was filled with excitement," Lucy agreed. '"And it's not over yet. Root beer?"

  "I just heard about Pepper on the bridge,"' Daisy said, swallowing. "I could have lost her. If you hadn't been there—"

  "Not me, Captain Wilder." Lucy surveyed her, trying to see past the exhaustion. Daisy was more than tired, she was beaten down, as if somebody had kicked all the sass out of her.

  "I should have been there," Daisy said, her voice catching.

  Yeah, you should have been. Lucy sat down across from her. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong anytime soon? Don't even think you're going to get away with 'I'm fine.' You're not fine. You're exhausted and depressed and you can't go on like this."

  Daisy shook her head, and then the camper door opened again and Stephanie said, "I need to see you." She frowned at the iPod, where Kirsty was singing about not making love on a mountaintop.

  Lucy frowned back at her. "We're talking here."

  "It's okay." Daisy smiled weakly at Stephanie. "What's up?"

  Stephanie climbed into the camper. "There's a problem."

  I know and I was solving it before you barged in here. Lucy smiled at her tightly. "Really? What a surprise." She looked at Daisy. "Cheese stick? Root beer?" Hemlock?

  Stephanie ignored Daisy to scowl at Lucy, her body rigid with dislike. "It's that knife of Bryce's. Friday's dailies came back. He keeps buckling it on different sides."

  In spite of everything, Lucy grinned. The knife was a real problem for continuity—that would be Daisy, who should have caught it that the knife was wrong—but Lucy couldn't think about it without laughing. A fight with a gladiator, Wilder had said. A tight-ass with a sense of humor. There couldn't be a lot of those.

  "And now he wants to strap it on his calf."

  "His calf. Lucy couldn't help herself, she laughed out loud, picturing Bryce hobbling across the set, the knife splinted to his leg.

  Stephanie was disgusted. "Because of what his consultant said."

  "Ah. His consultant." Thank you, Captain Wilder, for your inspiring lecture on jaw-jamming Navy SEALs and their handy-dandy calf knives. Lucy looked over at Daisy. "How many shots do we have of the knife on the wrong side, Daisy?"

  "Four. None on the calf." Daisy stopped smiling. "I missed it at first, but then I made sure that it stayed on that side for the rest of that scene. I don't think anybody will notice."

  "Okay, then," Lucy said to Stephanie. "For the stuff we've already shot, left, right, even Bryce doesn't know. Let the microminds find it and post it on the Internet, I don't care."

  "That's obvious," Stephanie snapped.

  Lucy met Daisy's eyes. "Go check on Pepper. We'll talk tonight after the shoot's over."

  Daisy nodded and escaped, edging around Stephanie to get out the door.

  "Sit," Lucy said, and Stephanie looked mutinous, but she sat down in one of the swivel chairs. "We appear to have some problems."

  Stephanie's chin went up. "Problems?"

  Lucy leaned forward. "I know it's been rough, losing your director the way you did, but there are only four days left on the shoot, so if you could hold it together until Friday—"

  "I am holding it together," Stephanie said sharply. "What did I do?"

  "Well, to begin with, you're gone chasing Connor most of the time, so as an assistant you're not much help."

  Stephanie jerked back but Lucy kept going.

  "Then you patronized Althea on the set today, and she's not stupid, Stephanie. She plays dumb but she knew what you were doing and she didn't like it. That's no way to treat your actors. If you want a career in film, you should know that already."

  Stephanie flushed. "But—"

  "Also, you told Althea that if she slept with seventy-five people, she'd find the right man."

  "What?" Stephanie looked outraged for a moment, and then her face cleared. "Oh, for the love of God. That woman is a moron."

  Lucy repressed a spurt of irritation. "No, she's not. She's just confused. What did you tell her?"

  Stephanie sighed. "She was flirting with Nash." Her jaw hardened. "She's been chasing him, really blatantly."

  Lucy thought, Hello, hypocrite.

  "I think maybe she wanted to make Bryce jealous, use Connor as a backup plan. I heard her talking to Connor about her future, about wanting security, like she thought he was going to give it to her."

  "Right," Lucy said. "Now, about the seventy-five bed partners…"

  Stephanie kept on as if she hadn't spoken. "And she's mad at Bryce because he's spending a lot of time with Mary Vanity so—"

  "Mary Vanity?"

  "One of the makeup girls. We always call hair and makeup the Vanities, and the one Bryce is paying attention to is Mary, so she's Mary Vanity."

  "Right," Lucy said. "So how did you get from Bryce doing Mary Vanity to seventy-five men for Althea?"

  "I didn't. I was trying to get her away from Nash, and I told her about this study I'd read that said once you'd slept with twelve people, you should pick the next best one because you'd have a seventy-five percent chance of being happy with him."

  Lucy blinked at her. "And you told her this because…"

  "I thought she had to be past twelve men by now," Stephanie said, her nostrils flaring. "And given where she probably came from, Bryce has to be the best one."

  "Seventy-one men," Lucy said. "And two women."

  "And she confused the seventy-five percent with
the twelve." Stephanie rolled her eyes. "What an idiot."

  "I don't think she ever claimed to be good at math. But from now on, don't give her dating advice. Just kneecap her if she tries to sleep with anybody but our star."

  Stephanie nodded, and Lucy added, "Kidding."

  "Of course," Stephanie said, her voice as flat as Wilder's.

  "And I need the full script," Lucy said.

  Stephanie reached into her bag and handed one over.

  "Excellent," Lucy said. "Thank you very much."

  "You're welcome," Stephanie said, in a voice that telegraphed, Drop dead.

  Pepper opened the door to the camper. "Aunt Lucy, we are saving you a seat. There's lasagna!"

  "Excellent, Pepper," Lucy said. "I'll be right out."

  Pepper sat down on the step, and Lucy stood up. "We'll talk tomorrow," she said to Stephanie. "After I've read the script. I have some questions—"

  "Fine." Stephanie stood, too. "One more thing." She looked stern. "About Wilder. He's upsetting Nash. He has to go."

  "He stays," Lucy said.

  Stephanie shook her head, disgusted, and went down the steps, almost trampling Pepper.

  Pepper stood up. "I think we should have lasagna with J.T."

  "J.T., huh?" Lucy said. "Well, J.T. had an appointment so he's gone. But I will have lasagna with you."

  "Is he coming back?" Pepper said, looking alarmed.

  "Tomorrow."

  "Good." She took Lucy's hand.

  "That remains to be seen," Lucy said and let Pepper pull her over to the catering tables, pretty sure the lasagna was going to be the high point of her night.

  Forty-seven bucks lighter, Wilder pushed open the door to Eddy's, his Jax Comix bag in hand, and looked around. The only person in the steamy little diner who looked remotely official was a kid who couldn't have been more than twenty, tops, sitting at a corner table, watching the door.

  Wilder's eyes flickered about the room, cataloging the other occupants in the dim light before coming back to rest on the kid. He had to be the contact. Pathetic. Armstrong would have bitten him in half. After she tied him up.

  Wilder shook his head to get rid of the Lasso of Truth. Damn women. He figured this was why they didn't let women into Special Forces. Messed with a man's thinking ability.

  Wilder walked up to him. "Who the hell are you?"

  The kid slid awkwardly out of his chair. "Crawford." He extended his hand.

  Wilder ignored it. "You called me?"

  "Yes." Crawford lowered his hand, wiping it on his sport coat as he sat back down. "I'm your handler."

  First the clusterfuck, now this. There was a reason Special Ops said that CIA stood for Clowns in Action.

  The kid was in his seat. Wilder pointed to the other side of the scarred Formica table. "You sit there."

  Crawford shrugged and moved, his back to the rest of the diner. Wilder took the chair across from him, dropping the Comix bag on the floor. "Why do I need a handler? I'm on leave."

  The kid ducked his head. "Uh, not exactly."

  Resignation settled in. He'd known it was too good to be true. "Then what exactly?"

  Crawford's face scrunched up in confusion. "What?"

  Wilder wondered if the kid was old enough to shave. He sure as hell wasn't old enough to handle Wilder. He rubbed his left temple, which was beginning to throb. "Beer," he said to the waitress who appeared behind Crawford.

  Crawford jerked his head up. "What?"

  Wilder arched an eyebrow and the kid looked over his shoulder. The waitress nodded and walked away.

  Wilder waited for the kid to tell him what hellhole he was going to be flying off to now.

  "Don't Look Down," the kid said.

  Wilder blinked, staying the natural impulse to look down. "Say again?"

  "That's the name of the movie. It's also the name of the company that was set up to assist in financing the movie. Don't Look Down Incorporated. Let's call it DLDI."

  Let's not.

  "So far DLDI has invested four million dollars in the production of Don't Look Down," Crawford continued. "That's a lot of money."

  No shit. Wilder was still waiting for the really bad part, but he was relieved that Crawford hadn't mentioned places like Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet.

  "The money is coming through DLDI from a man named James Finnegan," Crawford said. "We have Finnegan on our terrorist watch list. We believe he's putting dirty money into the movie in order to pull out at least a percentage of it clean when the movie is released and funnel it into funding for various organizations that we are opposed to."

  Wonderful, Wilder thought. An international terrorist. That was all this mess needed.

  Crawford shifted in his chair. "We want you to watch the movie set for Finnegan. Get us a lead on where he is, a phone number, anything." Wilder sat back. He should have known the easy movie work was too much of a good deal not to go wrong. "And you just got lucky that Bryce needed a consultant and put me on the set."

  "Uh, no, not exactly," Crawford said. "We convinced his stunt double to leave. And then it was suggested to him via his agent, who has some issues with the IRS, that you might be a good replacement. He is highly suggestible."

  No shit. "It was not suggested to me."

  "We didn't know for certain he'd ask you. Now he has. Now you know. And now you can find us a lead to Finnegan."

  Fuck, Wilder thought, but it was still better than Iraq. "Was it by chance that I was picked to be Bryce's guide when he was at Fort Bragg?"

  "Uh, no. In fact, if you want the truth, Bryce's agent was the one who told Bryce to go to Bragg to get some help on being an action star. And we kind of told his agent to do that, too. And we got the Army to agree to it."

  Wilder nodded, resigned to the situation. "If Finnegan's behind the movie, there have to be a shitload of legitimate contacts he's made. Why not just follow those?"

  "Dead ends," Crawford said. "He's not dumb."

  Nobody connected with that movie has any brains, Wilder wanted to say, but the jury was still out on Armstrong. And Nash wasn't stupid. "Tell me about Finnegan."

  Crawford nodded. "James Finnegan. Seventy-three years old. His mother worked in the art museum in Dublin until she was killed in a cross fire. That's when he joined the IRA. Before 9/11, the IRA was getting a lot of cash in from the United States, and Finnegan helped them wash it by investing it in art. After that, Finnegan began freelancing, working for whoever paid him the most."

  Wilder sighed. "A capitalistic terrorist. Great."

  Crawford went on. "Finnegan disappeared off the intelligence radar until the Mexican authorities caught him in Cabo four months ago trying to take out some very rare and expensive stolen pre-Columbian artifacts from Costa Rica. Pornographic stuff. A bunch of jade dicks." He snickered, and when Wilder didn't join in, he cleared his throat and said, "Jade phallic symbols. Supposed to cure impotence and increase, uh, staying power."

  Wilder resisted the urge to make wisecracks since Crawford was being juvenile enough for both of them. "It's a smart play. Use the dirty money to buy the art, then sell it on the black market and get clean money from the collectors in return. How much was the stuff worth?"

  "The entire shipment would have been worth about five million without the Viagra factor. But if you believe the stuff will help you get it up, it's worth about fifty million. Finnegan's in his seventies. Maybe he believes." Crawford snickered again.

  Just what I needed, Wilder thought. Beavis as my CIA handler. "But the Mexicans caught him."

  Crawford nodded. "He paid them off and got away, but without the jade. Which leads us to DLDI."

  Wilder shook his head. "He lost the art so now he's financing a movie? How does that help him?"

  Crawford tried to look mysterious and just looked confused. "That's on a need-to-know basis."

  Right. "Do you have a photo of him? For all I know he's already on the set, I just didn't get introduced to him."

  "I'll get you a photo, b
ut the odds are slim that Finnegan will ever set foot inside the country."

  "Then why are you bothering me?"

  "I told you. We need you to keep an eye on things. See if you can get a line on where Finnegan is."

  Wilder sighed again. "What kind of backup do you have on call?"

  The kid looked confused once more. " 'Backup?"

  Fuck, this was like talking to Bryce. "You know, if the bad guy shows up. Do I call you to send in the troops? Or am I supposed to handle him? And how? Tie him up? Club him? Tell him he has nice eyes and buy him a drink?"

  Crawford tried to look disapproving and just looked grumpy. "You call me if Finnegan shows."

  "And?"

  "And I'll handle it."

  Right. Wilder took a deep breath and let it out. The odds of this kid handling anything were about the same as Finnegan showing up on the movie set, so it really wasn't an issue.

  "I said, I'll handle it," Crawford said, a little louder, disconcerted by Wilder's silence when he really should have been happy about it.

  "This is a pretty vague mission. You could have told me this crap on the phone in five minutes. Why'd you drag my ass here?" Wilder raised a finger as Crawford's mouth flapped open to answer.

  The waitress glided in and put a mug of whatever local brew was on tap in front of Wilder. She glanced at the kid. ''You need a refill on that Coke?"

  Crawford shook his head and she departed. Wilder was willing to bet it was Diet Coke.

  "I wanted to meet you," Crawford said.

  "Okay. Done it. Feel better? Bye."

  Crawford placed both hands on the scarred table. Wilder could see the veins pulse as the kid pressed down, trying to regain control. "There's no need to be antagonistic. We're working together."

  "What you mean 'we,' kemosabe?" Wilder picked up the mug and drained half of it in one smooth gulp.

  "What?"

  The kid liked that word, Wilder thought as he put the mug on the table. And he was too young to have seen The Lone Ranger, so the kemosabe crack was wasted. This was one shitty day. "Okay, we're working together. Work. Fell me about the people on the set who are most likely to be hooked up with Finnegan. The director—Lucy Armstrong." He felt a twinge or guilt asking about her, but she was the one in charge. "She just got on the set, but she's running things. What's her story?"